Snapshot of 'Highly Qualified'
Teachers Is Fuzzy

Whether the national picture is of states taking baby steps or giant
steps toward meeting the "highly qualified" teacher provisions of the
No Child Left Behind Act remained anyone's guess last week.

Some had hoped for figures that would at least clear up the
magnitude of the challenges states face, since state officials were
required to submit data on teacher matters to the federal Department of
Education under the sweeping law for the first time last week. But
confronted with hundreds of pages of documentation, Education
Department officials did not release them, saying they were wrestling
with how to make the figures available.

Meanwhile, an independent tabulation of policy changes wrought by
the states to bring their rules on teachers into line with the federal
law shows that most states have made some progress—although more
so in setting criteria for highly qualified teachers than for
high-quality professional development for teachers.

"In some areas, the states are much further along than they were at
the beginning, and in others, they are still struggling," said Kathy
Christie, a vice president of the Education Commission of the States,
the Denver-based group that made the tabulation. The ECS, which
provides information and assistance to state education officials, has
been tracking policy changes related to the federal law with a grant
from the Education Department.

The Education Trust, a Washington-based advocacy group for poor and
minority students that was influential in shaping the No Child Left
Behind law, took, if anything, a dimmer view of how much had been
accomplished.

Ross Wiener, the policy director of the Education Trust, said his
organization did not have a "very strong sense" of whether states were
making progress, and only in part because the first data for the last
school year were just coming in.

A report from the group last week faults the Education Department
for poor leadership on the teacher-quality provisions of the law and
calls on federal officials to give the states clearer and more
stringent guidance on meeting them. The department has promised to
release additional guidelines.

In a written response, Secretary of Education Rod Paige defended the
department's record, maintaining that it has "worked vigorously to
educate the nation on the significance of the highly qualified
provisions in the law and to ensure its implementation at the state and
local levels."

State Efforts

Washington parent
Iris Toyer speaks out Sept. 3 against the proposed voucher pilot
program for the District of Columbia.
—Photograph by Allison Shelley/Education Week

Under the legislation, every elementary classroom teacher and secondary
school teacher of core subjects—English, mathematics, science,
foreign language, social studies, and the arts—in public schools
must be "highly qualified" by the end of the 2005-06 school year. Newly
hired teachers in schools that receive federal money to serve
disadvantaged students under Title I were supposed to have met the
necessary criteria a year ago.

In general, a teacher deemed highly qualified must hold a bachelor's
degree, be fully licensed by a state, and have demonstrated knowledge
of the subjects taught. But it is up to each state to devise the
specific criteria that allow the state to determine whether a
particular teacher's qualifications meet the federal law.

States provided a first look at their progress in the data that went
to the Education Department last week. In that information, according
to department officials, the states were to have detailed the
percentage of classes being taught by highly qualified teachers
statewide and in the states' high-poverty schools, along with the
percentage of teachers receiving "high quality" professional
development.

But experts have been doubtful that the state numbers will be
reliable, because many states do not have adequate data systems. That
was a point made in a report released in July by the General Accounting
Office, the investigative arm of Congress. ("Many Teachers Missing 'Highly
Qualified' Mark," Aug. 6, 2003.)

According to the ECS tracking of state policy, at least 10 states
have put all the federal requirements for what constitutes a highly
qualified teacher into state law or regulation, and at least another 22
have done a lot of that work. That leaves a maximum of 18 states with
"a ways to go," said Ms. Christie.

Forty-one states now require a test of subject-matter knowledge and
teaching skills for new elementary teachers, as mandated by the federal
law, but only 10 have set ways of gauging subject expertise for
experienced teachers that seem to be fully in accordance with the law,
according to the ECS. Even fewer have devised annual measurable
objectives for reaching the goal of a highly qualified teacher in every
classroom by 2005-06 or come up with a system to ensure high-quality
professional development for teachers.

Connecticut, which has been consciously working on teacher quality
for some 15 years, came out the best in the ECS tabulation, and even
that state does not have a detailed plan for meeting the 2005-06
goal.

Still, state policymakers have been active. For example:

New York has reminded teachers and administrators that certified
teachers are not necessarily highly qualified under the law.

Wisconsin has come up with a succinct definition for "highly
qualified." It says requirements usually include a bachelor's degree,
completion of an approved licensing program, and passing a rigorous
exam in the subjects taught. Teachers with their own classrooms who
enrolled in "a state-approved alternative teacher-training program"
are an exception to the general rule and meet the standard.

Tennessee will allow teachers to meet the highly qualified
standard by using student test-score gains, an attempt to link good
teaching with what students actually learn.

Starting this school year, Alabama has prohibited issuing new
alternate-route certificates to teachers who have already held such
certificates for three years.

California has decided to phase out emergency licenses and
credential waivers in the next two years, and it has encouraged
districts to move teachers with those statuses into training
programs, where they can be licensed.

Conundrum on Veterans

One of the thorniest issues states face is determining how to deal
with experienced teachers who do not have college majors in the
subjects they teach. The federal law requires that they demonstrate
subject mastery, but the idea of a mandatory test has not been
popular.

Among the criteria that are under consideration or have been adopted
are gaining certification in the subject from the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards, satisfactorily meeting assessment
requirements set up under an individual professional-development plan,
and service on curriculum committees.

More controversial are allowing teachers to meet the standard by
receiving three satisfactory evaluations or completing college
coursework amounting to 21 credit hours, or about seven semester-long
courses. The latter choice requires significantly less training than
the typical college major gets, which in the law serves as the gold
standard of subject-matter preparation.

Mr. Wiener of the Education Trust said those were examples of how
"states are all over the place with respect to compliance with the
provisions of the law." As a result, he said, the Education Department
should "send a clear signal" that "highly qualified" means what it says
and not some lesser standard.

Vol. 23, Issue 2, Pages 24, 28

Published in Print: September 10, 2003, as Snapshot of 'Highly Qualified'
Teachers Is Fuzzy

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.